


I Can't Tolerate It

by This_Immortal_Hope



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_Immortal_Hope/pseuds/This_Immortal_Hope
Summary: All of the missing scenes between ACOWAR and ACOFAS set as a song fic to Tolerate it by Taylor Swift.People kept asking which side of the couple in the song was Nesta and which side was Cassian... they are both.
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	I Can't Tolerate It

_I sit and watch you reading with your head low_

_I wake and watch you breathing with your eyes closed_

_I sit and watch you_

Cassian waits a full two days before he even considers entering the library. Nesta made it clear with her quick retreat after they returned from the treaty meeting that she had no interest in any of them. She needs time, he knows it, and he knows that he should probably give her more of it, but… he just has to see her. That's it, he will just _see_ her and make sure she is ok. She doesn't have to talk to him. She isn't ready for that, and maybe neither is he.

It isn’t hard to find her, she is curled up on a settee facing away from the window despite the fact that it’s a beautiful day, and she might be able to get a little sun on her pale skin if she were to turn around. Her knees are tucked up under the skirt of her simple grey dress, hair done in a less elaborate style than usual, as though she couldn’t be bothered to brush and braid it so she simply threw the thick mass of hair into a messy, golden-brown ball at the back of her skull without thinking. Her head is bent low, such a change from her usual impeccably straight posture. Normally even when she is reading Nesta sits up, spine straight as a rod, head barely inclined downward, book held at an imperiously precise angle as she leafs through the pages with alert precision. Today it is as though she has curled in on herself, her neck is bent at an uncomfortable angle, the book is resting on her thighs, Cassian swears her eyes even flutter shut for several moments as she takes in a few heavy breaths.

_I notice everything you do or don’t do_

_You’re so much older and wiser and I-_

The book in her lap is open, but anyone could see that her eyes are blank as she stares at the pages. Nesta’s face is always more animated when she is reading, of course she is never wide-eyed and smiling. She doesn't grin broadly or gasp in shock at the words on the page, but in her own way, her own controlled, still, graceful way... she lights up. Her eyes move quickly, darting around the page, widening almost imperceptibly in shock or delight at semi-regular intervals. She usually lets out a little snort or _maybe_ a very restrained laugh of some kind every once in a while, and she bites her lip if something particularly scandalous is happening. Cassian loves to watch her read, he did it a decent amount while Feyre was in the Spring Court. Things seemed so complicated back then, so impossible and dark and forbodeing, but there were those hours that he would stand, watching her from a distance, never letting his presence be known until he could see a light blush on her cheeks. Of course he would always choose exactly that moment to walk in with an easy smile and a suggestive quip. In those stolen hours of intimacy that she never knew about, there was peace.

He doesn’t know how to approach this version of Nesta, so he leans easily against a shelf and just watches her. That's what he said he would do anyway, just look. He can feel her shift a little under his gaze, heavy and intent on her face.

When she finally looks up Cassian can feel his heart shatter inside of his chest.

Her eyes are steel, and not the brilliant, flashing, passionate _steel-edged_ irises that he has always known. They are just steel, hard and flat and cold. She looks older, if that is possible in her newly immortal state, since the war ended. There are circles under her eyes and something in the tense of her shoulders, the way they seem to drag downwards, as though the events of the past months have wearied her well-beyond her years.

Immortality has aged her despite its promise to preserve her youth.

She blinks twice, not bothering to acknowledge his presence, and then looks down again. Cassian feels like a fist is clenching around his heart. This is unbearable. He can handle an angry Nesta, a determined Nesta, a Nesta who is spitting insults or burning with fury. Those are all things that he is used to, that he knows how to manage. Hell, when she is like that it sets something burning under his skin that he is so tired of denying. This is different, this pumps ice into his veins. The sheer blank-faced indifference… he can’t handle this. He can’t watch her look at him like that. Not after everything.

  
  
_I wait by the door like I'm just a kid_

_Use my best colors for your portrait_ _  
_

_Lay the table with the fancy shit  
_

_And watch you tolerate it_

Days seem to pass in a blur of the same thing. Cassian goes to the library and can’t bring himself to enter. He fits his back against the wall outside of the door. He stands there, entirely still, with a mug of tea slowly becoming cold in his hand. Nesta knows that he is there, standing outside of the door. She says nothing.

Around noon every day he forces himself to move, takes a tray from the kitchen, piles it with roast chicken and potatoes and soft bread rolls and vegetables, and pretends that if he puts it on the table in front of Nesta she might actually eat something off of it. One day he even plucks a stupid daisy from a vase that Elain has in the kitchen and sets it on the shining silver tray. Once he has something tangible to offer her, he is able to force himself to enter the room that she has taken over as her own. He sets the tray down, turning the cutlery towards her.

“You really need to eat something, Nesta.”

She looks up again, eyes blank. She doesn’t spit out a scathing retort or call him a damn overprotective bat or tell him to find something better to do. She just looks up, blinks twice, and puts her head back down, staring at the same page of the same book that has been in her lap since the first time he came in.

_If it’s all in my head tell me now_

_Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow_ _  
_

_I know my love should be celebrated  
_

_But you tolerate it_

When Cassian leaves the library he drags a heavy hand over his tired face, and it is just his luck that his brother is standing around the corner he turns. Rhysand’s hands are folded behind his back, black shirt and pants pressed perfectly, face set in a grim sort of determination.

“She doesn’t deserve you, brother.”

“Don’t” Cassian spits, voice more defensive than he’d like it to be.

Rhys bows his head in mock deference that Cassian is sure he thinks is sincere. “I have been thinking that it might be time for you to make your rounds through the camps.”

Cassian sighs, fixing Rhys with an exasperated look. They both know that Rhys is right, that as general, and the only full-blooded Illyrian who doesn’t despise the entire race in the Night Court’s inner circle, he has to go to the camps. He has been given a reprieve because of his injuries, but now that he is obviously healed… he needs to deliver honours and listen to widows and ensure that orphans are not being thrown into the mud. Like he was.

He needs to be in Illyria, pacifying the pissed off war lords and throwing around the power of the Night Court. He needs to make sure that everything is settling back into the same tense understanding that existed between Illyria and the Night Court before the war. He needs to look grieving families in the eyes and pretend that they don’t hate him, pretend that they aren’t sickened by the fact that he is breathing and their loved ones aren’t.

“I can’t go yet Rhys, I… I am needed here.”

“By whom, exactly?” Rhys’ violet eyes are dark, full of a resentment that he seems to save for the eldest Archeron- for the only person he's ever met who might be broken in enough of the same ways that the High Lord himself is that he simply can't stand to be around her. Cassian has considered saying as much to Rhys before. He's considered asking him why he hates Nesta so much. He's considered this because every bone in his body is screaming to defend her. He wants to tell Rhys that he isn’t being fair, that Nesta wants him here and that she needs him to help her heal, but… does she?

It certainly doesn’t seem like he is doing any good by standing over her every day. In fact, it’s pretty obvious that she would prefer he was anywhere except near her. She doesn’t even bother to fight with him any more. She just sits there, cold and closed off… barely acknowledging his presence, tolerating it at best. 

“Alright” Cassian chokes on the words as he forces them out of his dry throat, everything inside of him fighting against the idea of leaving her. “I’ll go, but promise me you won’t antagonize her, Rhys. Not right now, not after everything.”

Rhysand nods “I have no plans to interact with Nesta at all, rest assured. She may continue to languish in the library for as long as she wants” he pauses, something seeming to soften just a little in his gaze “I remember my first war, Cassian. I am not trying to be cruel. I am trying to give you both some space, and time.”

Cassian gives a sad, dejected, understanding sort of nod.

  
  
_I greet you with a battle hero’s welcome  
_

_I take your indiscretions all in good fun_   
  


“Cassian is coming back from the camps today” Feyre says, trying entirely too hard to look casual as she strolls into the library. Nesta hadn’t spoken to her- or anyone else- in at least a week. Probably longer.

She knows that Feyre thinks it is her fault Cassian has been gone so long. He never would have stayed away if Nesta could have just shoved it all down like the rest of them, pretended that everything was fine, and been willing to fall into Cassian’s arms while he stood outside of the library for a few days. He stood there for 4 days in a row, and then apparently some clock that Nesta had been placed on, that she wasn’t even aware of, ran out… and he left for 3 months.

“Are you telling me this so that I will be here when he returns, or so that I won’t be?” Feyre looks surprised that Nesta bothered to reply.

“I suppose that depends on how you plan to greet him.” Feyre has the decency to look ashamed as she says the words, trailing off on the end like she knows that she is being insufferable.

Nesta shouldn’t even care that he is coming back at all. He clearly decided that she wasn’t worth it. He put in his few days penance, did his part, and then who could blame him for giving up on a lost cause? The idea of greeting him at all should make her sick, and the fact that Feyre clearly expects her to fling her arms open and cry as he opens the door, begging for forgiveness of all her sins… well, that would make her sick if it wasn’t such a massive fucking joke.

Nesta reaches for the glass of wine on the table beside her and shrugs easily, the very picture of indifference, even as she gulps down two large sips of the bubbling liquid in lieu of a reply. She turns her head back down to her book, a clear dismissal. Feyre straightens her shoulders, clearly preparing to say something but when Nesta looks at her again, eyes lined with silver and flashing ice, she thinks better of it and exits with a heavy sigh.

Nesta counts to one hundred before she moves robotically, as if something deep inside of her is pulling on her muscles like puppet strings. She finishes the wine, puts down her book, and goes to her room to change.

_I sit and listen, I polish plates until they gleam and glisten_

_You’re so much older and wiser and I-_

Nesta feels like an idiot, sitting in the kitchen of the town house, watching Elain smile brightly as she moves about, checking the oven timer and prattling about her garden. If she notices that Nesta has not said a word since sitting herself on the tiny stool at the high counter, she says nothing about it. Nesta loves her for that. She loves her for ignoring the fact that she has been sat here with a towel and the same already shining white plate as she moves in rhythmic circles, eyes fixed on the door and ears peaked in anticipation.

She waits for him like a woman waiting to see if her husband is going to return from the war. Stiff-backed, glassy-eyed, and melancholy. It’s ridiculous. He hasn’t been at war, when he was at war she was with him. When he was at war she felt like maybe a piece of him was hers, but now… she has no right to be waiting for him like this.

Elain freezes when a deep, thundering laugh echoes through the town house, followed by a lighter, more feminine one. _Mor_. Nesta works her towel into a rut around the edge of the plate she is holding, remembering that he was never hers. Even in battle, even when it felt like he might be. An image flashes in front of her. She sees his freshly bandaged hand drop hers like it is made of hot iron, feels his eyes leave hers the second Mor enters the dirty war tent.

No, he was never hers. He was never meant to be hers, they are entirely different, entirely incompatible in every way. He is a centuries old general, and she is a 24 year old human trapped in a body that will never really be her own. He knows this world and his place in it, and she never will. 

_I wait by the door like I’m just a kid_

_Use my best colors for your portrait_

_Lay the table with the fancy shit_

_And watch you tolerate it_

Nesta doesn’t move for hours, remaining at that little stool even when Elain swoops out of the room to greet Cassian with an easy laugh and a gentle embrace. She pretends that she doesn’t hear it when Elain tells Cassian that she is in the kitchen, because if she didn’t hear it, and if Elain never said it, then she doesn’t have to admit that he is avoiding her. She doesn’t have to admit that he knows she is sitting here, alone, waiting for him while he is settling in the other room with his family. She sets the plate down without shattering it, congratulating herself at the little victory. She stares forward, still for some reason convinced that he might walk through the door at any minute.

The image comes to her mind with such perfect clarity that a small, traitorous part of her brain thinks that she might just will it into reality.

His massive frame would casually lean against the open door, legs crossed at the ankles, wings tucked in tightly, arms hung loose and open and completely vulnerable at his sides. He would be smiling in her version of the story, in this picture that she paints in her mind. His lips would be tugged up at the corners into an easy, teasing sort of grin. Not a smirk, not a superior or sarcastic mocking sort of grimace like the ones he gives her when she challenges him. No, she would be able to see his teeth, white and sharp and gleaming, the right side of his mouth would be pulled up just a bit higher than the left, like how he looks at her when she challenges _other_ people. His skin would be a shade darker than when he left, he would have spent a lot of time in the sparring rings, she imagines, and it would have darkened to that perfect caramel golden-brown that makes his eyes spark like moss against the forest floor. He’d be staring at her, the brown and green in his eyes fighting for dominance and ending up melting into some honey-gold mixture that would make her feel hot and excited, and maybe… maybe if this picture was real, and he were here, and he did look at her like that, maybe then she really would walk right into his arms and never leave again.

_If it’s all in my head tell me now_

_Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow_ _  
_

_I know my love should be celebrated  
_

_But you tolerate it_

Nesta closes her eyes tightly, unable to look at the empty doorframe any longer. Darkness isn’t a welcome sight either, though. She takes a deep breath in, trying with everything inside of her not to think of the night that they all returned here after the battle with Hybern and the treaty meeting with the High Lords. She tries not to remember laying alone in her dark room, curled on her side, fighting back tears for a father that she isn’t even sure she ever loved. She tries to forget the gentle trill of laughter moving up the stairs, so hauntingly similar to the sounds seeping into her ears from the living room now as she sits, once again alone in this townhouse full of people.

She tries to forget the moment that she realized she didn’t belong here, that she couldn’t belong here. The moment when even Elain had made a joke, and everyone had laughed and breathed out a sigh of relief like it was a final tableau, the happy ending to some grand tale. As if they were all about to turn the cover and tie everything together with a damn bow. They acted like it was the end, but... endings are supposed to be _happy_ ,

Nesta knew even then that she couldn’t laugh, knew that she was broken and bleeding and shattered in ways that no one could see. She knew that she wasn't the heroine here. She wasn't the happy, smiling, cheerfully determined girl in the romance novel who you knew that everything would work out for. She was a forgotten side character at best, maybe even a villain at worst. Nesta knew then that it wasn’t a happy ending, that there was no happy ending coming to her.

She tries to forget that traitorous voice that used to exist in here head, trying to convince her that maybe the ending wasn’t what she thought, maybe things could turn back.

She tries to forget that she didn’t sleep at all that night, that every time someone moved downstairs, every time a footstep fell against hardwood, her breath hitched and she thought that maybe, just maybe… it was him. Maybe he was coming to find her, to talk to her, to show her that there could be- if not a _happy_ ending- at least one that didn’t hurt this much. Maybe.

Maybe is a dangerous word, it incites hope, and having hope was the biggest mistake Nesta Archeron ever made.

  
_While you were out building other worlds, where was I?_

_Where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?_ _  
_

_I made you my temple, my mural, my sky_

Nesta grips her scalp in her hands, trying to banish all of these useless images and memories and hopes and thoughts and possibilities. None of it matters anymore.

But there was a moment when it did matter. She knows that there was. There was a brief, fleeting, life and death moment when the world parted for them. She can still hear the snap of his bones, still feel the white lightning running through her veins. She can see her father’s body in the grass and feel her fingers clasped tightly around Cassian’s biceps, urging him to get up, to run, to escape with her. She can hear his voice, exhausted and weak and ragged in her ear telling her to _go_.

She can remember the second that the world fell away, when everything smoothed at the edges and it didn’t matter that Hybern was quickly approaching them, it didn’t matter that she might be able to make a few quick moves and run into the woods, it didn’t matter that the war was won or lost or still waging. None of it mattered. All that she could feel in that moment, the only thing that was real was that she _knew_ she couldn’t leave him.

She remembers that his body was strong and hard and unyielding even as he lay dying in the grass. She remembers that despite every indication to the contrary, despite being moments from death, she’d never felt more safe or secure than when his arm wrapped around her back and he held her to his chest. She remembers that the sun went dull, the sky faded, and nothing mattered but him, him and his perfect words and his soft, urgent lips.

Him and his pretty lies.

_Now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life_ _  
_

_Drawing hearts in the byline  
_

_Always taking up too much space or time  
_

_You assume I'm fine, but what would you do if I-_

He left her. Once the battle was over he left and she waited on that field as first Lucien and later Rhysand came to claim her sisters. She waited and waited and stared at the burnt patch of grass where her father had once been. He let Mor sling her arms around him and Azriel and walked off with them when they got back to Velaris. He left her in every way that a person could leave someone.

And then he came back for a _minute_ , the blink of an eye when you consider how fae view time. He came back and he decided that she wasn’t worth it, because what other conclusion could she possibly draw? She was too hard, too broken, too cold, everything that everyone had always called her… and she had never cared, except that now she did. She had. He left again. For months. He went off to solve everyone else’s problems, to keep the peace in Rhys’ court, to ensure that Azriel didn’t have to face any harsh realities or be around the people that he hated so much. He left her to protect them. Like he always has. Like he always will.

He left again and again and again, and now he can’t even come see her. He knows that she is here, but he is with Mor and Feyre, the happy sunshine women who smile and pretend that nothing hurts and make it all so easy.

Nesta’s eyes widen for a second at a flash of movement by the door, and she hates the little piece of her that _still_ might forgive him if he walked through the door right this second.

He doesn’t.

Nuala and Cerridwen flash into the space in their strangely half corporeal way. They stop short when they see her “oh, Lady Nesta. Forgive us, we did not know that you were here. We will-”

“No” Nesta says quickly “stay please, I was just leaving.” She stands up, pausing at the door with a thought that her own words sparked inside of her “actually, could one of you find me a travel bag? I have some things to pack.”

  
_Break free and leave us in ruins  
_

_Took this dagger in me and removed it  
_

_Gain the weight of you then lose it  
_

_Believe me, I could do it_

Forgetting is a lot easier than remembering. Nesta makes a lifestyle out of forgetting Cassian. She finds the worst apartment in the most revolting slum that Velaris has to offer and nods her head when she sees that the building is weak and pathetic and crumbling to the ground, just like her. The easiest way to forget, she is quickly learning, is wine, so she drinks a lot of it. It works better than she ever could have imagined. It makes her numb and dizzy and pleasantly free in a way that she has never been before. It makes the days bleed into weeks without her having to feel a thing. It makes her bold and brash and leads her to the second-best way to forget Cassian.

Her limbs are so long now, lean and graceful, and entirely mesmerizing as they tangle with these males. Their lips are laced with sweet wine as they bare down on hers, they are harsh and demanding or lazy and seducing. The males are powerful and dominating or they are tender and gentle. They are tall, short, thin, muscular, handsome, more than handsome. They are exactly what she needs them to be- _not him_.

_They don’t leave._ The irony could make her scream and cry and shatter everything around her if she let it. Some of them get the hint and disappear easily. Others think that they might mean something to her, think that she might mean something to them. What a joke, Nesta could never mean anything to anyone. Some of them try to kiss her temple in the morning or ask if she wants breakfast, and then she almost remembers for a second, almost feels something, almost wishes that the lips caressing her skin belonged to someone else.

Nesta can feel herself growing thinner, but she can’t bring herself to care. She can’t bring herself to care about anything any more. She is happy, or as close to happy as someone like her is ever going to be. She is numb, she is made of ice, she is impervious to Feyre’s do-gooder meddling and pitying glances. She doesn’t feel bad that she will never fit into this world the way that Elain has managed to. She doesn’t even flinch if she sees _him_ now. Sometimes she can feel his eyes on her back from across the street or sense him sitting on a rooftop above her apartment, and she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that of course _now_ he has chosen to stay, now that it is already too late and she is way too far gone.

Being a lost cause, Nesta learns, is a _revelation_. It’s the most blissful, freeing sort of feeling, to not care.

_If it’s all in my head tell me now_

_Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow_

_I know my love should be celebrated_

_But I watch you tolerate it_

Cassian feels like he has lost his mind as he sits in this damn townhouse, pretending that he isn’t fighting the urge to crawl out of his own skin. He feels sick, watching Nesta sit there in the corner with a glass of wine in her hand and a completely blank look in her eyes, more empty than he has ever seen. The glazed over, strangely contented but still ice cold look in her eyes is worse than blankness.

He thought that she had gone as cold as possible that day in the library, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. This is something entirely unique. That was an ice cube that there may have been hope of melting. This is a frozen lake in December and he has been tiptoeing around it for months now. He has been pretending that it doesn’t _hurt_ when her eyes scan over him in a crowd like he is a piece of scenery.

He has to have lost his mind, because it isn’t possible that she is this indifferent.

He follows her into the snow, begging her to give him some kind of reaction. He pulls out a gift-wrapped box and looks for a hint of surprise or warmth in her eyes at the sight of it.

 _Nothing_.

He grabs her wrist and waits for a flash of anger and a cutting remark.

 _Nothing_.

He tries being honest. He says he’s tired of the games, the bullshit. She just stares at him and says she’s not. No, clearly she is having a grand old time.

_Nothing._

He tells her to come live at the townhouse again.

That does it, that sparks something… no, it only sparks her voice to rise, her eyes remain flat.

 _Stop_ , she tells him. _Give up_ , she tells him, stop chasing her, stop thinking about her, _stop_. As if the fact that he cares is the greatest burden in her life.

He goes in for the kill. The words are so acidic on his tongue that she _has_ to react.

She only stares. She only tells him to go home. She uses his damn name, which she never does, and she looks at him like he was the greatest disappointment in her life.

He lets her go, he watches her walk away and he knows that he hasn’t lost his mind. Surely if he had gone insane…even he isn’t masochistic enough to create such a scene. To make himself watch the only woman he’s ever loved stare at him with nothing on her face but indifference.

Anger would be better, anger he can handle. It means that she feels something, at least. He could sit and listen to her yell at him for hours. He could bathe in her contempt, he could banter back and forth with her for days and count it as the greatest experience of his life at this point.

What he can’t do, the one thing that he can’t seem to manage, is for her to feel _nothing_ when she looks at him.

_I sit and watch you_

Nesta lights the candle, knowing that he won’t go away until she does. She is desperate to be rid of his presence, to burn away everything that he is and go back to being numb. She won’t feel what he makes her feel again. She can’t.

Cassian doesn’t leave the rooftop when she lights the candle, he probably should, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He waits for a fire to start, for her silhouette to be illuminated by the warm glow, except that the light never comes. So he sits on the rooftop, feeling his wings freeze to the concrete, and stares into the black window where he knows Nesta must be sitting, slowly letting her skin turn as icy cold and numb as the rest of her.


End file.
